Jago had time now to break and run.
Marcantonio gazed up and around, his eyes raking across the trees, slopes and sheer rock faces, as if he knew. It stood to reason: a man who had scratched his car in Berlin wouldn’t come all this way to do the same to another a vehicle then quit. The scratches symbolised a challenge to fight. Had Jago meant that? His difficulty now was to get clear. He had to come out of the hole under the two boulders, then scramble up a rock face where he would be silhouetted against light grey rock and soft lichen. He didn’t know if he was within range of the shotgun, but the dogs would have him. He lay still, barely breathing, head down. In his mind he saw Marcantonio’s face: cold, brutal and angry – the latter a victory of sorts.
He heard whistles and shouts. He thought Marcantonio and the kid had taken different routes but the dogs ran between them. How would it be if feet or paws appeared before his eyes? The penknife was in his hand, the short blade exposed.
‘What did the woman do, Fabio?’
‘Hung out the washing, of course.’
‘I saw that – but what did he do with the spade?’
‘I don’t know. But the grandson’s out with a firearm and the fucking dogs.’
‘What’s the engagement regulation again?’
‘You know that as well as I do, Fabio. If our lives are threatened we can shoot.’
‘Ciccio, if we shoot, we can’t expect support in high places. But those bastards won’t take me . . . Do we just get the hell out?’
There was no answer. Both men had eased their Berettas clear of the holsters, armed them and checked the safety. Both hardly dared to breathe. It was the body smells they feared, the food wrappers in their bag, the excrement in the tinfoil . . . Fabio watched as Ciccio sent a message of the danger closing in on them. They heard whistles, shouts and dogs barking.
The boy went directly behind the house and climbed a scree slope. Marcantonio was to his left, and the dogs roved between them.
Below, Stefano had the City-Van jacked up and the spare wheel ready on the ground.
Marcantonio came warily. He had explained little to the kid of why they were searching the wooded, rocky slope or what they expected to find. The kid was the son of a cousin and would never be within the family’s inner loop. He would be a foot-soldier, a picciotto, and would grow old in a junior rank. He might go to gaol for years, and would never be able to break free of the family’s control. Now, and in the future, the kid would do as he was told, and receive explanations only if it suited. He didn’t know where the City-Van had been when scratched, or when the tyre had been cut.
Marcantonio couldn’t control the dogs the way the kid did – the kid guided them with shrill whistles, but Marcantonio had to shout at them. He stumbled twice. His trainers had lightly ribbed soles, good for walking in Locri or Siderno, but not suitable for the hills. He had been a child when his father was taken, but his father had rarely been in the valleys or on the mountains. He had spent time in Reggio and Milan. Marcantonio wasn’t used to covering almost vertical ground where the rock could be razor sharp or slid away under his weight. The kid was like a goat, and climbed fast. The dogs wanted to be with him, not with Marcantonio.